Part 27 (1/2)

There was surprisingly a gas cooker standing against one wall. 'He heats glue on that,' Gareth said, seeing me looking, 'and other sorts of muck like linseed oil.' He pointed across the room. 'That's his lathe, that's his saw-bench, that's his sanding machine. I haven't seen him working much. He doesn't like people watching him, says it interferes with the feeling for what he's doing.'

Gareth's voice held disbelief, but I thought if I had to write with people watching I'd get nothing worthwhile done either.

'What's he making at the moment?' I asked.

'Don't know.'

He swanned round the room looking at sheets of veneer stacked against a wall and at little orderly piles of square-cut lengths from exotic black to golden walnut. 'He makes legs with those,' Gareth said, pointing.

He stopped by a long solid worktop like a butcher's block and said to me over his shoulder, 'I should think he's just started on this.'

I went across to look and saw a pencil drawing of a display cabinet of sharply spare and unusual lines, a piece designed to draw the eye to its contents, not itself.

The drawing was held down by two blocks of wood, one, I thought, cherry, the other bleached oak, though I was better at living trees than dead.

'He often slats one sort of wood into the other,' Gareth said. 'Makes a sort of stripe. His things don't actually look bad. People buy them all the time.'

'I'm not surprised,' I said.

'Aren't you?' He seemed pleased, as if he'd been afraid I wouldn't be impressed, but I was, considerably.

As we turned to leave I said, 'Was it in their sitting-room that that poor girl died?'

'Gruesome,' Gareth said, nodding. 'I didn't see her. Perkin did, though. He went in just after Mackie and Harry and found it all happening. And, I mean, disgusting- there was a mess on the carpet where she'd been lying and by the time they were allowed to clean it up, they couldn't. So they got a new carpet from insurance but Perkin acts as if the mess is still there and he's moved a sofa to cover the place. Bonkers, I think.'

I thought I might easily have done the same. Whoever would want to walk every day over a deathbed? We went back to the sitting-room and one could see, if one knew, just which of the three chintz-covered sofas wasn't in a logical place.

We stayed only a short while before returning to the family room where Tremayne was safely awake and yawning, getting ready to walk round his yard at evening stables. He invited me to go with him, which I did with pleasure, and afterwards I made cauliflower cheese for supper which Tremayne ate without a tremor.

When he went out at bedtime for a last look round, he came back blowing on his hands cheerfully and smiling broadly.

'It's thawing,' he said. 'Everything's dripping. Thank G.o.d.'

The world indeed turned from white to green during the night, bringing renewed life to Sh.e.l.lerton and racing.

Out in the melting woodlands, Angela Brickell spent her last night in the quiet undergrowth among the small scavenging creatures that had blessedly cleaned her bones. She was without odour and without horror, weather-scrubbed, long gone into everlasting peace.

CHAPTER 8.

Tremayne promoted me from Touchy to a still actively racing steeplechaser that Monday morning, a nine-year-old gelding called Drifter. I was also permitted to do a regular working gallop and by great good fortune didn't fall off. Neither Tremayne nor Mackie made any comment on my competence or lack of it, only on the state of fitness of the horse. They were taking me for granted, I realised, and was flattered and glad of it.

When we returned from the newly greenish-brownish Downs there was a strange car in the yard and a strange man drinking coffee in the kitchen; but strange to me only. Familiar to everyone else.

He was young, short, thin, angular and bold, wearing self-a.s.surance as an outer garment. He was, I soon found, almost as foul-mouthed as Nolan but, unlike him, funny.

'h.e.l.lo, Sam,' Tremayne said. 'Ready for work?'

'Too sodding right. I'm as stiff as a frigging virgin.'